Lovestruck (26 page)

The other mothers all gasped when, the following day, she appeared at Wendy’s gates.

‘Rosie, you’re so brave.’ exclaimed Caroline. ‘You didn’t need to come, you know. We would have taken the boys.’

Rosie smiled behind the dark glasses. ‘Thanks, but it’s time to take them home.’

Caroline squeezed her arm. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ she muttered. ‘But if things are going bad with hubby, you have me to rely on. We’ll be single girls together. We’ll have a blast.’

‘Right.’ Rosie took a step backwards. She didn’t identify herself as a single mum. Not yet! She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to do that.

Caroline saw her body language. ‘I know,’ she said softly, over the noise of shrieking children as, one by one, Wendy let them out of the room. ‘You think it’ll never happen to you. But think about it: it’s far better for the kids to have two happy parents under different roofs, than two under the same roof who loathe each other.’

‘Mummeee!’ George and Toby hit her like a tornado. ‘I poured water on Sabina’s head and Wendy said, “Naughty!” ’

‘Oh dear,’ Rosie said. Caroline was swallowed up by her children. All the way home, Rosie thought about what she’d said, the boys burbling happily about all the fun they’d had at the sleepover, as if nothing in the world had changed. Maybe she was right. If Jake were still just a boyfriend, if the boys hadn’t been born, they would have split up by now. The children were what was keeping them together. How could she deprive the boys of a mother and father, of a happy family, of the thing she’d never had?

But for a while now they hadn’t been a happy family, she thought as they hurried past the photographers and let the gates swing shut behind them. Were things really going to change? Or was the truth that her children would never grow up in the unit she’d always dreamed of providing them, that even if she and Jake stayed together their home would be filled with rows and silences and tears? She’d survived with Nanna just fine. She’d love the boys, Jake would love them, Nanna and bleeding Yolande and Rupert would love them too. They might not all be together, but they’d all be united in wanting the best for them. Perhaps that wouldn’t be so bad.

‘Mummy, you almost stepped in a dog poo!’ George yelled.

There were so many awkward conversations to be had. With King’s Mount, who politely said they wouldn’t charge her the first term’s fees, even though it was their contractual right, as they had such a long waiting list.
With David Allen Robertson, who was less gracious, muttering about how he still expected to be paid, despite Rosie’s constant reassurances that he would be. The boys were asking where Jake was, saying they missed him. Rosie said he was away for work and they accepted this, but they still asked every night when he would return.

He called to speak to them every day, just before he went on stage. At the sight of his name on the caller ID, Rosie’s heart would start racing with fear, hope, excitement, confusion.

She was yearning for him to say it had all been a terrible mistake, but too proud and scared to say it herself. But he always sounded so emotionless. ‘How are the boys?’ he’d ask coldly.

Rosie could do brisk too. ‘They’re fine,’ she’d reply.

‘Good. I miss them.’

‘Of course. They miss you too.’

Only on Friday, did he add. ‘So did you find out about counselling?’

‘I’m looking into it.’

‘We have to be really careful about it. After all this, I do not want our marital problems in the papers.’

All he cared about was his sodding reputation, not about saving his marriage. ‘I’m sure none of this will end up in the papers,’ she said, trying to keep her cool.

‘So I’ll see you on Sunday morning. I’ll take the boys out. About nine?’

‘Great.’ Rosie was shaking as she put her phone back in her pocket.

She had an hour to kill before pick-up, so she decided go down to the Village, stroll round the duck pond, window-shop – anything that could take her mind off her worries. She walked down to the Green and began her familiar routine – the posh charity shops, the gift shop, where she bought a stupidly expensive bar of rose soap, immediately regretting it. The deli, where a box of macaroons, a snip at eight pounds, was about to go in her basket when she became aware of two women muttering to each other.

‘That’s her, I know it is! Look at what she’s about to buy. Bloody disgraceful, isn’t it, when her husband’s basically stealing from ordinary people?’

Hot-cheeked, Rosie put the macaroons back on the shelf, as Patrizia and Caroline burst in.

‘Hey, Rosie! Darling!’ They both hugged her. ‘What a piece of luck. We were just talking about you. In fact, we were about to text to ask you to come and join us and then we spotted you. Come on, let’s go and have a coffee and cheer you up.’

They whisked her out of the shop, the women’s jaws dropping. ‘We’ll pick up Minette from the shop, she gets so bored in there,’ Caroline announced, pushing open the boutique’s doors. Minette, who was engrossed in her copy of
Junior
magazine, jumped up.

‘Come on, darling, we’re going to have a latte – decaf for you, obviously, and cheer poor Rosie up.’

‘Rosie!’ Minette exclaimed. ‘I actually have just the thing for you. It came in today and I thought of you instantly.’ She ran to the racks, and pulled out a floaty orange blouse.

‘Orange?’ Patrizia said dubiously.

‘I was a certified House of Colour consultant before I met Adrian. It’ll look great on her.’ She held it up to Rosie’s face. ‘See how it brightens her up. Because you’re looking pretty pale, darling, no offence.’

‘She’s right, it does!’ the others cooed.

Rosie turned to the mirror. Minette was right, the orange made her face seem bathed in sunlight. Who would have thought it? She smiled tentatively at her reflection and the reflection smiled back. If she wore this, she might at least be able to fool the world into believing she was functioning, even if she was doing nothing of the sort.

‘You have to have it,’ cried Patrizia, and the others murmured assent.

‘I can’t.’ Rosie shook her head as she looked at the price tag. ‘I can’t be seen splashing cash right now.’

‘We’re not going to grass you up to the papers,’ said Caroline indignantly.

‘I’ll give you a ten per cent discount?’ Minette added hopefully.

Rosie laughed. She knew this was the last extravagant purchase she’d ever make. From now on, it would be
back to Primark, TK Maxx and Matalan. She wouldn’t mind. She’d never wanted the designer clothes in the first place.

‘Twenty per cent?’ Minette urged her.

She’d wear it tomorrow when Jake picked up the boys. He’d see her and … again, this was nonsense. She’d ended things. She didn’t know if she wanted him back. But then all the more reason to look glamorous, in control.

‘Thirty per cent?’

‘Say fifty and we have a deal.’

At ten to nine on Sunday morning she was in her jeans – they were far looser than they’d been for months, another result for heartbreak! The flattering orange top was on, and she’d threaded huge dangly earrings through her lobes and her skin glowed under her foundation and her lips glistened under their application of lipstick. She twirled in front of the mirror, practising her smile again.

What on earth was she doing?

She reached frantically for the baby wipes and scrubbed at her face. She pulled out the earrings and yanked the blouse over her head. She was pulling on an old sweatshirt as the doorbell rang.

‘Daddy!’ the boys cried ecstatically.

Rosie hurried down the stairs. She was an idiot. She wasn’t even sure she wanted Jake back, she certainly didn’t want the Jake of the past six months, yet she still
wanted him to want her. She was being juvenile and immature she reprimanded herself, as she buzzed him through the gates. Buzzing her own husband, the father of her children, through the gates of the house that he owned. It was a horrible concept.

He stood there looking even skinnier in a new bomber jacket –
where
had that come from? – and jeans. Perhaps she should have kept the make-up on? At least worn the blouse.

‘Hello,’ she said, her mouth suddenly so dry she could hardly speak.

‘Hi.’

The boys were dancing around his legs. ‘Daddy, Daddy!’ Toby thunked into George. ‘Eee-aaagh!’

Rosie couldn’t stop staring at her husband. She’d forgotten how attractive she found him. She should have kept the make-up on.

‘Here are my keys,’ he said, reaching in his pocket and handing over the Fripley and Farquhar key ring. Rosie remembered the day they’d moved in, him excitedly trying to work out which key went in each lock. Another stab in the heart.

‘You could have used them,’ she said.

‘No, I couldn’t. It wouldn’t have been right.’ He clapped his hands. ‘Come on, then, boys! We’re going to McDonald’s!’

The boys screeched with joy.

‘Jake! Really?’

He shrugged, his face completely closed down. ‘I’m
a cliché now. I’m going to do what clichéd divorced dads do with their children on Sundays. Next week … the zoo.’

‘The zoo!’

‘Jake … I …’

‘Got everything? Right, then.’

Rosie knelt down and hugged the boys tight.

‘Ow, Mummy, that hurts.’

‘I love you. I love you so much.’ She looked up and her eyes met Jake’s. She buried her face in George’s shoulder. He wiggled. She jumped up and started leafing through the coat stand.

‘They don’t need coats, it’s tropical out there.’

‘Sure. You’re right. Well. Have fun.’

The door shut behind them. Rosie watched them trotting across the drive, yabbering away to their father. So this was how it was going to be. Jake wasn’t showing the faintest inkling of wanting a reconciliation. They reached the gate and Jake pressed the red button to open it. Her precious family disappeared from view.

Their marriage-guidance counsellor, when she eventually found one, was a man, which threw Rosie, because, chauvinistically, she’d assumed this was a woman’s job. His name was Julian, and he was very skinny with a shaved head and big brown eyes. He was a bit of a dandy; Rosie became fixated on the silk spotted handkerchief that could always be seen peeking out of his breast pocket. Which was all wrong, because she shouldn’t have been concentrating on Julian’s get-up, she should have been concentrating on saving her marriage.

Julian asked them to take turns talking and for the other one to listen. Rosie went first, because she’d organized the sessions.

‘I feel I don’t know who you are any longer,’ she said, sitting in her beige upholstered chair – very David Allen Robertson – wringing her hands. ‘We used to be a team, but since the move and the play and all this secret tax stuff, I’ve felt we haven’t been communicating at all. Everything seemed to be about you: your career, your problems. The boys seemed irrelevant. I seemed irrelevant—’

‘That’s not true!’ Jake exploded. ‘I was doing it all for
you. The hard work, the tax stuff, the stress, it was all to give you the life you wanted.’

‘But I never said that was the life I wanted! I was happy how we were. You didn’t seem to realize that. It just showed how we didn’t really know each other.’ She’d been thinking a lot about this: their whirlwind courtship. They’d still been on their best behaviour when they married, they hadn’t yet had the chance to see each other’s faults.

Jake was arguing his side. ‘I’m an actor. I’m ambitious – I always was. If I did well, I had money. That’s the way it goes in my profession. It’s famine or feast and we had the chance to feast.’

‘We didn’t have the chance to break the law.’

‘Oh for Christ’s sake.’ Julian raised a long, warning finger. ‘Sorry. Sorry, Julian.’ Jake continued: ‘But, Ro … it wasn’t breaking the law. I just didn’t ask enough questions. I was lazy and let Mum do everything. I’ve told you that a million times. And because I was stupid, I’ve lost everything: my career, my house, maybe you. I can’t apologize enough. I can’t do any more.’

‘Mmm.’ Rosie hesitated and then said. ‘You didn’t want to go for walks in the park any more. We used to love our walks in the park.’

‘And box sets. We were in the middle of
Breaking Bad
and suddenly you weren’t there any more.’ Then she giggled, because she knew this was mad.

‘People recognized me. It wasn’t fun any more.’

Rosie cleared her throat, trying to think of the least inflammatory way to say the next bit. ‘Do you think perhaps you should have listened a bit less to your mother?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you think perhaps you’re too much under your mum’s thumb?’

‘Leave my mum out of it, all right?’

With that explosion they were back at square one. ‘See what I mean?’ she said, appealing to Julian. ‘He’s just stopped being able to communicate like a normal person.’

‘Oh, sod off,’ Jake said, standing up, and he stormed out of the room.

Rosie looked at Julian. ‘Well, didn’t that go well?’

After that, Jake wouldn’t go back to counselling and Rosie barely had time to dwell on how she felt about this, because so much else was going on. The house was on the market and since a quick sale seemed likely, they had to find a new place to live before term began. Rosie was ringing round every primary school in London, seeing if they had vacancies, hoping she could then rent a flat nearby, but the only schools with free spaces were schools whose Ofsted reports said things like: ‘There is not nearly enough good teaching in any area of the curriculum.’

Rosie thought of how dismissive she’d been about King’s Mount with its acres of playing fields and science
labs and wanted to kick herself. Then she thought of the lovely little primary school up the road in Neasden where Toby had been accepted just before they moved and she wanted to weep.

The summer holidays had arrived and Rosie was having to take each day as it came. Once again the Wendy’s mums were proving a godsend: suggesting outings, inviting the boys over for the day so Rosie could have some free time to pack up the house – no luxury fleets of removal men, this time.

At least the photographers had left the gates, bored with endless snaps of Rosie coming in and out wearing a tracksuit. No one seemed to have twigged that Jake was no longer living there, they assumed he’d discovered a secret way out – plus they had a picture of him looking upset and an apology. The story was dying, just like Christy had said it would.

The play had finished. Ellie had returned to the US, visibly pregnant in the paparazzi shots, resolutely refusing to name the father. Rosie knew she’d never hear from her again.

Whenever Jake was with the boys, she drove down to see Nanna. She was on a new combination of drugs and responding well to them.

‘So what’s going on with you and Jake?’ she’d asked on the latest visit, like every time. ‘I’m not happy seeing you apart.’

‘We made a mistake getting married,’ Rosie said. ‘I think we were in lust, not in love. I think I was stupid and
got pregnant accidentally and I think we never really knew each other.’ She’d rehearsed this speech endlessly to herself and was starting to believe every word of it. Her heart was broken, but Jake didn’t even want them to try to get back together, so somehow she had to justify it to herself.

But Nanna tutted. ‘Well get to know each other now.’

Rosie thought of Jake storming out of the session and shook her head sadly. ‘I think it’s too late. Even if we did get to know each other, I’m not at all sure we’d like what we found.’

‘Nonsense. I know Jake’s a good guy. He’s just got a bit of a daft mum. Talk to each other.’

‘That’s what we were doing in the counselling. But he walked out.’

Nanna’s expression made it very clear what she thought of counselling.

‘I know, Nanna, but it’s the modern way. Anyway, it’s not working. I’d like to give it another go, but Jake’s making it clear he’s not interested. He must have given up on us before I did.’

‘I don’t believe you. Jake loves you. That’s always been clear.’

‘I’m really not so sure.’

Returning home from Bristol, heart full of sadness, she wasn’t exactly delighted to pull in through the gates and find Yolande’s Range Rover parked there.

‘Hoo-bloody-ray,’ she muttered to herself, jumping out of the Passat.

‘Yolande!’ she said brightly. ‘What brings you here?’

Yolande looked far older than Rosie remembered. She was wearing as much make-up as always, but Rosie couldn’t remember the deep lines above her mouth or the etchings round the eyes. Perhaps they’d just not been so pronounced, or perhaps she’d had to give up on the Botox. Rosie thought of Rupert and Christy, and to her annoyance felt a huge pang of sympathy for her mother-in-law.

‘I needed to talk to you.’ Her outfit, at least, was as vibrant as ever: a violet trouser suit. But as she walked towards the front step, she stumbled in her stiletto boots. Rosie realized that she’d never see her mother-in-law as the unstoppable matriarch again. She was human, frail, vulnerable.

They sat in the kitchen, making small talk about the boys.

‘I was rather hoping to see them. Perry didn’t tell me they were with him today, but he has a lot on his mind.’ She frowned at her coffee. ‘Hmm. Perhaps a touch more milk.’ OK. She hadn’t changed beyond recognition.

For a while, they only talked about the boys. Rosie simply didn’t have the nerve to bring up the marriage, so they skated round it as she broke the news that on the plus side Toby had started eating broccoli. On the minus, he’d given up carrots.

‘But they both seem very happy at the moment, even though …’ Rosie’s voice trailed away.

‘Even though their parents are no longer together,’ Yolande said.

‘Well, er …’

Yolande sighed heavily and once again looked every second of her sixty-eight years. ‘Look, I take responsibility for this. I made a bad mistake and didn’t inform my son about the choices I was making on his behalf. So I hold my hands up.’

There was so obviously a ‘but’ coming. Rosie sat and waited.

‘But in my day you married to stick at things. For richer for poorer, for better for worse.’

Right. Something your husband obviously subscribed to. Rosie nodded politely, looking in her coffee cup.

‘Jake misses you so much, you know,’ Yolande said suddenly.

Rosie’s head jerked upwards. ‘Sorry?’

‘He misses you. He’s in terrible pain.’

‘He’s not showing it!’ Rosie cried, forgetting to keep up her guard and then added softly. ‘God, I miss him too. So much.’

‘Do you?’ Something changed in Yolande’s expression; she looked instantly softer, happier, eager.

‘Of course!’ Rosie exclaimed and then added, dejected, ‘But I don’t think he’s bothered about us.’

‘What are you saying?’ Now there were tears in Yolande’s eyes. Seriously, would wonders never cease? ‘Of course he’s missing you. He’s wretched.’

‘He’s not showing it.’

‘Oh, Rosie,’ laughed Yolande in the way that normally made Rosie want to deck her, but which now she suddenly found oddly reassuring. ‘That’s just Jake, you know. He was always like that, even as a little boy. So ridiculously
proud
. And he’s an actor, remember, he knows how to hide his feelings when he has to. He thinks you don’t want him any more, so he’s trying to show he doesn’t care.’

Now it was Rosie’s turn to try to hide the huge surge of optimism that shot through her. ‘I’m still upset with him,’ she warned. ‘He hasn’t been a great husband recently and the tax thing was the last straw.’

‘I take full responsibility, I told you!’ Yolande cried, holding up her hands. ‘He wanted to tell you when it first all looked like it was going to blow up, but I expressly told him not to. I said the less people who knew, the better. We hoped it would never get this far.’

Rosie’s head was reeling. Yolande was admitting she was wrong. Far more importantly, Jake missed them. She couldn’t help the little smile that crept round the corner of her lips.

‘I have a lot to think about,’ she said.

‘We all do.’ Yolande stood up. ‘I don’t think Jake should continue to be represented by Christy.’

Silence fell. Rosie stared at her. She
knew
.

Yolande continued: ‘I know she’s your friend, Rosie, though really I’ve never seen what you had in common, but she’s not done wonders for Jake. Telling him to do that ridiculous play. I think she’s bad news.’

Now her pale blue eyes bore straight into Rosie.

Rosie smiled up at Yolande. ‘That’s up to Jake to decide.’ Christy will always be my friend, she wanted to add, but she knew better. The battle lines would be drawn again and she needed Yolande to pass on the message. ‘Please tell Jake I … I do want to talk to him at least.’

‘I will.’ Yolande moved towards the door. ‘Goodbye, Rosie.’ A soft cheek was offered for a kiss. The familiar smell of Coco Mademoiselle. ‘We’ll be in touch.’